{"id":5336,"date":"2018-06-19T23:38:46","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T23:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carolandkarl.com\/blog\/?p=5336"},"modified":"2025-06-15T08:41:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T08:41:26","slug":"texas-road-trip-day-1-alabama-to-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carolandkarl.com\/blog\/texas-road-trip-day-1-alabama-to-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Road Trip, Day 1: Alabama to Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer shutdown is here which means it’s vacation time for Karl and I. This year we decided to do something new, a road trip to Texas. Karl lived in San Antonio when he was young so I’ve heard countless stories about it, especially regarding the infamous Riverwalk. But instead of just visiting San Antonio we’re doing a tour around Texas. Our trip will start with Houston, then we’ll move on to San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, plus a brief stop in Waco to visit the Dr. Pepper museum.<\/p>\n

Day 1<\/h2>\n

The first day of our trip was a really long driving day. Driving from Anniston, AL to Houston, TX takes 11 hours if you don’t stop. We broke the drive up by stopping in Tuscaloosa, AL for breakfast, and then stopping in Baton Rouge, LA to tour a historic site and eat lunch. Neither of us had ever been to Baton Rouge before so we had no expectations. We were really impressed with what we saw, and I think the city merits its own visit one weekend. The city has a lot of character. There are lots of old buildings, public murals and art, a waterfront area along the river, and some really nice public spaces.<\/p>\n

I always do a ton of internet research before traveling. Tripadvisor and Yelp are two of the sites I use most often. Tripadvisor has a great ‘Top Things To Do’ ratings list you can browse per location that I used to find out about touring The Old State Capital<\/a>. It was absolutely amazing and well worth stopping for. The gorgeous castle is free to tour. However, I highly recommend spending $3 to see the ‘Ghost of the Castle’ show. This special movie experience was designed by one of the groups that do work for Disney. The show tells the history of the castle with awesome special effects. If we’d had more time I may have paid to see it again. It was that cool.<\/p>\n